This is it, friends. The end of our 2018 Birthday Extravaganza. Today we announce two big projects, one of them for all of you future-Safe-Zone trainers out there, and the other for all of you who are looking to start a Safe Zone program in your community.
Hey, wait. Is there a lot of overlap there? That’s so convenient.
S.T.A.R.L.A.B. – An Online Academy for Safe Zone Trainers, and Gender/Sexuality Educators
STARLAB is an academy for people who want to be Sexuality/Gender/Safe Zone Trainers. We will be using the platform we created to launch our online courses this week to power this new initiative, which will be cohort-based, and facilitated by Meg and me.
We’ve been tinkering on STARLAB for the past couple of years.
Some of you may remember that we announced it in our last Birthday Release. A few hundred of you are already on the waiting list. A lot of our work has been figuring out exactly how to deliver the program, as well as what would go into it, and what would be expected from the participants.
Now, we have the technology. And together, we will learn, advance, and better ourselves in the service of those we teach.
So, despite our mission delays — or maybe because of them — we’re thrilled to finally be making it happen.
In the next couple of weeks, we’ll be rolling out invites to people who are our list (giving priority to those of you who signed up first), and recruiting our first Cohort of S.T.A.R.L.A.B. Cadets.
If you’re already on that list, you’re good to go. If you’re not, and this sounds like something you (or someone you know) would want to participate in, you can still sign up for an invite! Here’s the link: http://eepurl.com/cbJeWX.
For more information about STARLAB, you can head over to https://thesafezoneproject.com/STARLAB.
Train-the-Trainer Clearinghouse
Despite our curriculum being totally free and uncopyrighted, and ditto with all of our activities and other resources, there are still a lot of organizations who need help getting a Safe Zone program off the ground.
We’ve been here to help.
For several years, we visited dozens of schools, universities, and organizations and conducted Safe Zone Train-the-Trainer retreats: 2- or 3-day long trainings where we would take a group from never having facilitated a Safe Zone training, to rolling out a tailored curriculum and training their peers.
We are no longer offering Train-the-Trainer visits as a service.
Now, we are going to be offering even more help, albeit in a totally a different package.
In the spirit of the Safe Zone Project, we’re translating everything we learned doing those train-the-trainer visits into a free online resource for any organization or individual looking to train a group of trainers, and get a Safe Zone initiative started in their community.
The Safe Zone Train-the-Trainer Clearinghouse is a new resource within the resource that is the Safe Zone Project. At the risk of getting too meta, here’s what we mean:
- You know how we have a bunch of activities for people doing safe zone trainings? We’ll soon be publishing a bunch of activities conducting Train-the-Trainers
- You know how we have our Foundational Safe Zone Curriculum? Well, we created a Train-the-Trainer Curriculum for people to teach others, over the course of a several-day retreat, how to facilitate the Foundational Safe Zone Curriculum.
- And we also have sub-sets of most of the other resources on the way for you, including Train-the-Trainer FAQs, resources, best practices, and facilitation tips & tricks
All of that, combined with some new things we have in the works, make up what we’re calling [for the moment, until we come up with a cuter name] the TTT Clearinghouse.
You’ll be able to find these resources, as we create and publish them, at https://thesafezoneproject.com/ttt.
Our Final Birthday Update Update
Because this is the end of our Birthday Extravaganza, it seems like a great time to report on the key numbers. Here they are, as of August 2nd:
- 990 people have downloaded the 5th Edition of our Foundational Curriculum (it’s heartbreaking that I couldn’t report a cool one kay)
- 97 people entered into the Birthday Gift 🎁Scavenger Hut (again, painfully close to a nice round hundo)
- 21 people have started our online course Self-Guided Foundational Safe Zone Training (it couldn’t have been 20?)
- And 5 people have already graduated and earned their certificate of completion! (5! Now that’s a comforting round number)
Thanks to everyone for playing along. For our tiny team, with a $0 marketing budget, this has blown away all of our expectations.